


you're the storm within my veins

by siriuslydraco



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2018-11-22 13:15:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11380929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/siriuslydraco/pseuds/siriuslydraco
Summary: Perhaps the time spent fighting amid walkers, wights and dragons has created a wedge between them that has plagued him since returning. But he cannot let her bare his grief as heavily as she bares her own.





	you're the storm within my veins

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoy guys! 
> 
> written for Jonsa Countdown on Tumblr. The prompt for day 2 was "storm"

The storm is unrelenting, and its wild thrashing against the stone walls is akin to battering rams that try to bring down the castle. Sansa finds she can not sleep while rain and snow and the fiercest wind the north has seen in ages throws itself against her window. The fire in her room that had been lit earlier is now dimming, and the last embers blow and hiss as the wind rushes down the chimney from outside. 

Its sputtering in the hearth is almost like a snake hissing from the corner, and sometimes when the rain and sleet gathers in a gush and creaks through the window it sounds like ghosts moaning and haunting their way through Winterfell. _Sansa. Sansa_. They seem to call her name, and her blue eyes shut tightly- so tightly it begins to hurt- because she can not bare to imagine the ghosts of her family are standing in the darkness. 

A burst of thunder, like the roar of a giant, sounds throughout the skies and she squeaks quietly as she slides deeper under her furs. But she can not get warm. Fear that has embedded itself in her since childhood is now causing her to quake and tremble where she lays. Her mother used to sing to her and tell her stories whenever she had cried the castle down because of the storms that used to rage during winter, but Lady Catelyn is not here now and she finds no comfort in her memory. A memory could not sing, or brush her hair or soothe her with stories of knightly valor.

There is nothing in this castle but memories. All of them bring their own storms.

Despite the fact that she is covered in soft linen and fur and bathed in the sweaty heat of the last flames of the fire she still feels horribly cold. The skies are alight with gale winds and lightning, and the gods above are clashing swords as the thunder rolls throughout the night. She shivers as if she's being bathed in ice and she craves - _needs_ \- a heat no naked flame could give her. She needs a certain fire that can not be born within anyone other than the blood of a dragon. She needs it now, as the rain patters and the winds howl like the ghost of her direwolf. She needs _Jon_. 

She can not go to him, not now at this unseemly hour. But she wants him, she wants him like he had wanted her so long ago. When they had both given in to carnal desire and bone aching love. Sansa; a daughter of Winterfell, a wolf of the north now detests the cold and craves the warmth she finds in the arms of a dragon. But she cannot tell whether Jon wants her anymore, or if he's now too enraptured with the queen who was born amid a storm as wild as this. _Daenerys Stormborn. Mother of Dragons._ The woman who is the only one who shares his dragon blood. 

The ravages of war often play on Sansa's mind as the reason why Jon was so wanton and desperate; perhaps that's why he had taken her in his arms and kissed promises along her body. That was before he had faced White Walkers and Cersei Lannister. That was before he left. 

 _I'll come back to you Sansa. I promise._  

He _had_ come back, but he had brought shadows and silhouettes with him, memories of death and pain and he had not sought comfort in her arms. Instead he had took to storming around the castle with Ser Davos- the ghost of Tormund Giantsbane haunting their every step- reigning as the first Targaryen king in the north. Memories of twisted sheets and haphazard furs, the soft flickering of candlelight against stone and the warmth of Jon's kisses almost make Sansa forget the storm outside. But a loud cry of thunder claps throughout the blanket of night above Winterfell, and Sansa launches from her bed with a terrific whimper. 

She misses the Lady Knight terribly in that moment, the shadow of her guard forever gone from Sansa's doorway, and she wishes then that she had not left to marry Jaime Lannister. 

 _Oh Brienne,_ Sansa thinks, _if you were here you could reassure me_. But she is not there, and the hallway is empty from her figure. 

The castle sleeps, as does the north, only the whisper of the wind and the faint howl of wolves can be heard. As Sansa runs on the stone, her bare feet freezing beneath her ivory shift dress, she wonders if Lady's ghost howls in fright of the storm as Sansa's soul does. Girl and wolf, forever bonded through sheer fear, even in death. 

The embers of light that burn in the iron brackets cast high shadows that stretch along the wall, and as Sansa runs around a corner she almost skids to a stop. One shadow is looming as tall as a man, and if she looks quickly it seems as if its the smiling ghost of a tormentor that stalks her nightmares. If the storm can resurrect the memories of her family, she finds it unsettling that it could bring back the image of Ramsay Bolton. 

Her feet pick up on the cold ground at the thought of him but the shadows follow her every turn, and she runs faster and faster, the storm raging louder and angrier outside and her heart feels as if it will explode at any moment with fright. But then she sees it, like an entrance to salvation carved by the gods themselves, more promising than anything even though it's shut. Sansa doesn't bother to knock first, but just takes hold of the iron ring on Jon's door and pushes it open as desperate as the wind batters against the windows. 

The whole north is not asleep, she finds that out as she steps into the room. There is a dragon sitting by the fire, his grey eyes intently staring into the flames like that of the ones that burn in his veins and he looks upon the wolf as she enters. 

Jon immediately stands up as she closes the door, her breathing erratic and her eyes wild as they find his. At first he thinks there's some great disturbance within the castle that she has ran to tell him about, but she does not say anything for a minute and he knows that whatever she has come here for is personal. 

He tries to say her name but all he can muster is a rasping squeak that is not nearly a sound against the backdrop of the storm. There is a tension that she has brought with her, and Jon can taste it in the air and feel it's energy seep through his blood. It's the same feeling he gets whenever he's near her and try as he may he cannot stop the thrumming heart beat that quickens within him. 

"Jon, I'm sorry" Sansa tells him, her voice a lovely whisper "I couldn't sleep" 

"You're shaking" his voice is full of concern; a care that he cannot feign and one he cannot push down. There is a small space between them and he crosses it in two strides, but he doesn't touch her; never touches her. 

He has not touched her since that night she lay here in this room with him; kissing and loving the impending war away. 

Her arms are covered in bumps that prickle through her porcelain skin and she shivers with spurts of random cold as the memories of the winter winds run their course through her mind. And as she remembers Jon's absence from her side these past few months she finds there is another sort of cold that overtakes her. 

"It's nothing" she tells him, her hands rubbing her bare arms to gather some heat to her body "I just don't like storms. I was always afraid of them as a child" 

She's afraid of storms, but does she know she's the most dangerous storm that Jon has ever faced? Something in her eyes tells him she doesn't know or have any idea he's caught up in the whirl of thunder she brings as she enters a room. She does not know, and it's all Jon's fault. 

He's fought with his feelings too long, his desire for his sister had burned sinful and wrong inside him and it had eaten away pieces of his soul with guilt. But then she wasn't his sister, not when his true parentage had been revealed, and that guilt had turned into relief and her arms had welcomed him like he'd always wanted them to. Perhaps the time spent fighting amid walkers, wights and dragons has created a wedge between them that has plagued him since returning. But he cannot let her bare his grief as heavily as she bares her own. 

"Jon?" Sansa asks him, her voice bringing him out of the thoughts he was easily slipping into and his eyes flick to hers "could I stay here?" 

"I don't think that would be a good idea" he finds himself saying, despite the fact he wants her to. 

"I don't want to be alone" Sansa shivers again, her face shining with the fire in the hearth but it does not warm her. She steps closer to him and her presence is too much for him to bare, and he rips away from it before she can touch him. 

"Sansa" he warns, his voice a growl that makes his northern blood boil hot inside him. Her hands fall in mid air as they had stretched to grab him, and his heart falls at the disappointed look in her eyes. 

"Why do you push me away? What have I done to you Jon?" her voice is sad and he cannot bare to look at her. He can't see her pain for what it truly is; a pain he made. 

"You've done nothing, Sansa" he tells her, his grey eyes looking at the flames in the fire but they remind him of her hair so he looks away. 

"Then what? Why have you shunned me since the war ended? You can not even look at me Jon. Is it because you don't trust me?" she whispers sadly. 

"I trust you Sansa, you know I do" his voice is that northern lilt she loves so much; so soothing and rough and _believable_. And she wishes she _could_ believe him. He doesn't make it easy for her when he's never around anymore, or when he avoids any chance of being near her. She has lay awake some nights wondering if her concealment of her past has taken root deep in his mind. 

Perhaps he cannot forgive her for trusting Lord Baelish while Jon was at war, or for hiding the Knights of the Vale from him during the battle against Ramsay. So many years ago, but maybe he finds he can't forgive her after all. 

"Ever since you came back you've been different. You're distant, you don't talk to me and you hardly look at me" Sansa is a fiery haired vision as she steps before him, demanding his eyes to look at her. And he gives in willingly. But he does not answer her.

"Is it because you love her?" Sansa asks and he is puzzled beyond reason as he looks at her; black brows furrowing.  

"Who?" Jon says intrigued, now looking at Sansa as she stands there with eyes that study his face. 

"The queen, Daenerys Targaryen. I know you write to her frequently, that you ask her counsel often" her voice shakes as she confronts him but her eyes don't leave his. Whispers of gossip from the south had reached her during the times of war, and most of them were involving a silver haired queen and the new Targaryen prince. Sansa had not wanted to believe that Jon and Daenerys Stormborn were to form an alliance that was not only political. 

"Aye, I write to her often. She is the queen Sansa, she sits on the throne that I helped her win so she gives me counsel when I need it. That is all" Jon does not know why he needs to reassure her on the matter, or why she seems so concerned "I do not love her, not in the way you think I do" 

"What was I supposed to think when all I heard of you involved her? I may be Lady of Winterfell and I may live here in the snow but I hear things Jon. I _know_ things. I heard the talk of an unpolitical alliance, one of marriage between you" his face is one of bewilderment and there are hundreds of questions in his eyes. 

"The only alliance between myself and the queen is political. And she is my family, my fathers sister, I don't wish to marry her" he tells her, his eyes finding their way back to her face. Sansa has always been beautiful, but perhaps now she is more beautiful than she's ever been. With her pale face shadowed with the flames and her blue eyes looking like they have their own mind. 

"But what about when she comes here next month? What if you leave with her again?" Sansa can not help the desperation that trickles into her tone, or the blush that creeps along her face. But she can't let herself be abashed for the simple fact that Jon's absence has taken its toll on her, and if he left again she wouldn't face it. 

Ever since Daenerys found out about Jon, she had been unrelenting with her contact, and had suggested she visit the great North that had been Jon's home since childhood. But Sansa was not fond of the thought of the Dragon Queen being here. She didn't want to have to face the woman who had been carved in Sansa's mind due to rumours and idle gossip that had been carried from the capitol. If Jon did agree to this marriage alliance- one he had just deemed as folly- Sansa would find herself completely alone. Brienne was in Casterly Rock, Arya was in the Stormlands with the recently legitimised Gendry and Bran was traveling with Meera. She truly had no one other than Jon, and she felt colder at the thought of him leaving. 

"I won't leave Sansa, is that what you're truly afraid of?" Jon's voice makes her snap from her thoughts, and her eyes find his just as a clap of thunder storms outside. The window creaks and she can feel the chill of the rain in her bones. 

"I can't bare to be alone" her voice, soft as raindrops makes Jon step closer to her, the pure desperation of it making him crave her presence. 

"You won't be alone. I'll be here" he tells her "I promise you" 

"You left me once, and when you came back you were a different person. I thought that perhaps you and I would....." She trails off, her words becoming lost against the battering storm that rages outside, and Jon feels as if it's Sansa that controls the winds and rain, and her voice makes the lightning and her pain creates the thunder. He feels a sudden shiver as he realises the storm is inside here with him, and not above in the skies. 

"You and I would what, Sansa?" he knows what she means, but he cannot bring himself to act as if he knows. The memory of how it feels to kiss her and hold her swims through his mind and the way his heart aches inside him reminds him of a stab wound. But he sees in her eyes she seeks a desperation and a level of care that he can never give her.

She's everything he wants, but he's nothing she deserves. 

"It's of no matter now, Jon. Whatever it was that I thought we had is long gone" she is her mother in that moment, a fierce lady of the north and Jon almost cowers away from her as her shadow grows on the wall "and whatever you felt for me can be saved for Daenerys Targaryen" 

"Daenerys means nothing to me as you do! No one ever could!" Jon says impatiently, following every step she takes away from him but her eyes are ice and her glare is as fiery as her hair when she spins back around to him. He is a dragon, born with flames within, but as she stands there in all her terrifying beauty he can see that she is the one that holds fire in her bones and in the flaming locks on her head that spring more wildly with every second that goes by. 

"If I mean so much to you Jon, then why is it that you've never once called on me since you returned? How is it that Ser Davos and Lord Glover sit by your side and not me? Why is it that I'm shunned away like some child?" 

"It's because I see exactly what you want of me! I know what you feel for me Sansa, and I can't give you that" it hurts to speak the words but they are full of truth. A truthfulness that aches and pains him to speak, and he can see it does the same to her as she hears it. Her eyes are widened and her breathing becomes shallow as she stares at him, and he does the same back; getting lost in the blue sea of her eyes. 

"But that night..." she whispers as she takes a step forward. 

"That night should never have happened. I should never have dishonored you in that way. I shouldn't have made promises I couldn't keep" Jon looks away from her face then, not wanting to witness how it twists and falls at his words. He cannot bare hurting her but he has done it anyway "I can't be the man you want me to be. I'm not good enough for you Sansa, I'm nothing you deserve. You need more than me" 

"I don't need anything other than you. Why do you think I came here? I needed you to hold me. There is no one else I want" she's frantic as she takes a step towards him, but he is quick to relent as he turns away from her. 

"Sansa" her name sounds like a warning "you will marry a knight, or a lord and he will give you castles and babes and he'll make you happy. I can't make you happy, not in the way you should be. I've seen too much death, too much suffering and I can never spare you of that" 

He knows all of what she went through under the hands of Joffrey Baratheon and Ramsay Bolton. Sometimes he feels as if their memories have manifested themselves in his soul and has made him believe he will never truly love her as much as she deserves to be loved. They had ruined her faith in men for so long, but he does not want her to put all the hope she has left into him. He has died before, and pieces of himself are forever ruined because of it. He can't love her wholly if he himself is not whole. But there is nothing in her eyes that tells him she has relented.

"I love you, Jon" her words are ice and fire as they hit him, and he feels himself stagger on his feet once they leave her mouth. He aches to say them back; something deep within his tattered soul begging him to tell her but he refuses "and I don't want a knight, or a castle or babies if I can't have you. I don't want anyone else, I've told you that" 

This time when she comes closer to him, he does not back away. Her face is aglow with the flames in the hearth, and he can not tear his eyes away; not this time and not when she looks so haunting to behold. Her perfect lips are parted as they let out her soft breaths and something inside him wishes to kiss them for all eternity. 

"My father promised me someone brave and gentle and strong. I never thought that those things would matter, but they do and I've found them in you" she remembers Lord Eddard's words, the wind from outside seems to carry them to her. Her father had told her that so many years ago, but they mean the most to her now. Jon is all that he had promised her, and she knows he's the only man in all of the Seven Kingdoms she will ever give her heart to "and don't stand there Jon and tell me how I deserve more. You're worthy of anyone's love, and I've given you mine. But do you love me?" 

"Aye, I love you sweet girl" he sighs out in a shaky breath, his hands coming to cup her beautiful face. He finds he cannot help himself from admitting them anymore, and if this woman tells him he deserves her then he'll believe it. He'll believe it until the morning, when the storm doesn't rage so violently in the sky just like the storm that rages within them. 

Her longing for him takes a hold of herself then and she leans forward to press her lips to his, softly at first but then more fierce as he kisses her back. They're as soft as he remembers and as addicting too, each pull of them with his own makes him hunger like a starved man. His fingers pull at her red hair and he threads them through the curls as he runs the tip of his tongue under the plump curve of her top lip. She whispers how she loves him as he moves her to lie atop his furs, and he gives in and repeats it. 

He should not be in her arms, but he is too selfish to turn her away even though some dark part of his mind tells him he should. He is ruined and destroyed by war, but he knows she is too, and for tonight they will come together like two pieces of jagged glass and try to fit together. For now it is enough, even though he knows he'll have to work through the ugliest parts of himself to make room for her happiness. Sansa is his everything and nothing can compare to the way her lips trail soft kisses down his jaw and to the most intimate parts of himself. Nothing compares to the way she moans his name; hands fisted in his hair as he lays between her legs and when she says _Jon_ so softly and pleasurably he knows that ignoring the pain within him is worth it. 

The rain patters on the window as he makes love to her but to Sansa there is no storm outside, the only storm is the one that rages in Jon's arms. The thunder is the roll of his body with hers, and his lips are as soft as raindrops on skin as they brush against every inch of her. He's sure and strong, but he's as careful and soft as the lightning that kisses the sky above them. Maybe he is as unpredictable as the northern weather, but she finds a solace and comfort within him that she has never had before. 

She loves him, and he loves her and she wonders whether the storm that rages between their hearts, is far greater than the one outside. 

 

 

 


End file.
